Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Flying Tourbillon Openworked

At Audemars Piguet, tourbillons are nothing short of a family specialty. Among collectors who have a penchant for history, the company is widely revered for its creation of the first ever self-winding tourbillon wristwatch in 1986 - the ‘Ra Automatique’.

Since then, AP has found a way to do tourbillons in its own creative, unmistakably distinct style, often enlisting the Royal Oak as a canvas in the offing.

That fusion has spawned a range of desirable results over the decades: including AP’s first tourbillon-equipped Royal Oak in 1997; a trio of ‘flying’ iterations in 2020; and most recently, the Royal Oak Flying Tourbillon Openworked - a watch that gets everybody here at Wristcheck HQ, especially our founder Austen, superbly excited. “This is honestly the most insane openworked watch I’ve laid my eyes on,” he says. 

“[This watch] pushes the boundaries of movement architecture to new heights. Its combination of anglage, brushing and frosting is to die for, and I seem to discover something new every time I look at it.”

Like all of the best skeletonized designs, the Flying Tourbillon Openworked (Ref. 26735) takes an aspect of watchmaking popularly understood in technical terms and recontextualizes within the Royal Oak’s broader, worn aesthetic. That you can’t necessarily tell where style ends and substance begins - likely on purpose - is a significant achievement, helped along greatly by the Royal Oak’s fundamentally timeless design.

That wilful co-mingling of engineered and designed elements makes it appropriate to talk about the 26735’s movement right from the jump - essential as it is to the look, feel, and entire presence of the watch.

Designated Calibre 2792, this flying tourbillon movement could have been an absolute brick in the hands of lesser watchmakers. The large bridges positioned over the watch’s barrel and tourbillon - bearing a slight resemblance to traditional Chinese putou hats - have been vertically openworked; helping to frame all the insane finishing going on across the movement’s gear train and countersinks.

The sheer amount of openworking on display necessitates a rigorous approach. As you can see in the macro images, every segment of the movement has been hand-finished to within breaking point.

Take the jewel bearings as an example. Even within that single microcosm, it’s easy to contend with how seriously AP takes the art of handcraft. Depending on which section you’ve got under the loupe, no less than three separate brushing techniques will be visible: satin, circular and sunburst (collectively known as traits tirés).

In profile, the movement’s various bridges evince a staggering amount of anglage, executed in varying styles of sharpness. Soft internal angles and blade-like corners come together in what feels like the world’s most expertly manicured hedge maze; and - based on my own observations at least - there are even murmurs of the Calibre 2965 - another striking tourbillon movement from AP, best known as the engine for the Royal Oak Concept ‘Black Panther’.

The fact we could discuss the merits of the Calibre 2972 in purely aesthetic terms speaks volumes about the originality of its design; but equally, it would be a disservice to ignore the classical horological details which AP, true to form, has surreptitiously slipped in.

The most obvious of these is the anti-backlash mechanism: consisting of a pair of wheels, stacked atop one another just above the watch’s hands. AP’s engineers incorporated these in order to reduce the motion lost between gears (which also presents wearers with the added benefit of a winding motion that is more tactile and precise).

Add to that all the usual refinements that enthusiasts have come to expect of any contemporary Royal Oak - including an extremely true-to-size 41mm case in stainless steel - and you’ve got the makings of a modern icon.